THE SHAKESPEARE CODE

First up: we lean to stories tragical:
Not comical or pastoral, and most
Especially not a plot historical.
Although sublime in halcyon Hartnell days,
Historicals since then don’t float our boat.
Each year we get a helping of the past
That barely serves to keep us all awake.
It does what it’s supposed to, there’s no doubt,
But never takes us with it on the way.
It makes us long for Daleks by the load.
A prime example is The Shakespeare Code.

But first, we come to praise the gracious Doc
For hamming up, although it's oft his way
Is here reined in. His joie de vivre remains
But bounded is by darkness and by power.
Long may it last. But lo, he’s still agloom
Although the Rose has long since lost its bloom.

Poor Martha, for she just ain’t Rose, you see:
Too smart and self-assured by far we think
To fit that bill. And neither lost for words
Nor prattling like a lovesick fangirl she.
But in seduction mode she’s wont to find
A Time Lord with another on his mind.
Soon, we hope, she’ll learn from her mistake
Of kissing a Time Lord on their first date.
Whatever: in a crisis she comes through
Without so much as scream or ankle twist.
Though dress’d to turn the head Shakespearian,
Freedonia we know is not her home
Because she, faced with villainous uproars
Cries Harry Potter, England and St George!

As for the alien threat, we're not so sure
They're wyrd enough, so close in form to Gelth.
With both, the party in advance arrives
And smoothes the way for others of their ilk
By evil trickery of humankind.
And like so many episodes of yore
The magic turns to science in our hands:
Well-done enough, yet old enough to make
A yawn when ‘stead our souls were meant to quake.

Though we'll admit that once or thrice we've heard
That pen in proper hands defeats the sword
The doggerel of witches makes no chill.
(Besides, were we to choose a sobriquet
Doomfinger wouldn't be the first we’d pick
Into the hearts of mortals to strike dread.
It tends to make us laugh like drains instead.)

But like the rest, they see the Doctor’s soul.
Whence hied Time Lord mystique? What has he done
To make him clear as letters in the sky
To each enquiring alien passing by?

And then, the hero: rock star of his day
Or so they say, with autographs and all.
And yet with all the deathless prose he wrote
It now appears the Doctor said it first.
We'd lief believe that Bardic Bill had some
At least of his own words that he had writ
For future generations' benefit.

Now verily, egads and marry e'en,
Enlighten our poor minds with wisdom great:
For every time we take a little jaunt
To history's recesses, must we e’er
Involve the famed, with plot at a standstill?
If so then please feel free to fire at Will.